


Serum Sick

by serpensortiaqueer



Series: Grace & Diego | Finding comfort [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Gen, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, Good Brother Klaus Hargreeves, Good Brother Luther Hargreeves, Good Sister Allison Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Parenthood, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Wetting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 11:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18520849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpensortiaqueer/pseuds/serpensortiaqueer
Summary: “Some sort of hallucinogenic serum, I don’t doubt,” Pogo announces as he appears with Grace and Allison in tow, fingers steepled and brow furrowed, “From what young Miss Allison has been able to explain, I imagine it’s not life threatening, but rather intended to incapacitate. To give the injector, if you will, an advantage. We could run tests, in order for me to concoct the correct antidote, but I rather feel that would take as much time as letting the effects wear off naturally. Instead, my advice would be to have Grace step in at this point— what will see Master Diego right is plenty of rest, and monitored fluids.”





	Serum Sick

**Author's Note:**

> _Another_ part of this series written in response to a [prompt](https://umbrellakink.dreamwidth.org/284.html?thread=211740#cmt211740). To the best of my knowledge, this prompt wasn't made the same by the person, but I couldn't help seeing it fit as a flashback in this little Diego & Grace 'verse of mine.
> 
> Again, this is self-indulgent and rather lacking in plot. Let's be honest, it's just an excuse to have Diego babied, because he deserves it. He is a soft, soft Mama's boy and he is perfect. 
> 
> I pictured the kids as being about 15 in this, and it's entirely non-sexual.

_Get Mother!_ Luther commands as they barrel in through the Academy’s door— Diego’s sizeable body prone and writhing in the hold he, Ben and Klaus have on it, Allison hot on their heels. His tone is teenage gruff and authoritarian, very Number One, but for once his siblings don’t bridle at it, too caught up in the manic roll of Diego’s eyes and the sickly sheen of his perspiration on his blanching skin. That he had remained unconscious for their entire ride home had been worrying enough, but somehow, his coming around is not at all reassuring either; it’s as though their brother isn’t quite inhabiting the body they’ve been supporting between them. Luther with the bulk of his shoulders and a heaping of bravado, Ben quiet and focused as he hugs his middle, Klaus clinging to his ankles and hiccoughing through anxious tears. Diego’s whole body vibrates against them, from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes.

Allison darts passed them to follow Luther’s order. Her siblings do what they can to get Diego settled on the nearest couch. Though perhaps settled isn’t quite the word— not with his eyes continuing their rolling as though he’s possessed, even as Ben drops down beside him and grasps both of Diego’s hands in his own, squeezing in an attempt to ground him. Klaus tucks himself into Ben’s side, cards his shaky fingers through Diego’s sweaty hair— the way that Diego’s gaze keeps faltering and skittering over empty air hits him a little too close to home. 

“Buddy?” Ben murmurs, “Take some deep breaths, ‘Go. You are okay now, we’re home and Ally’s gone to get Mom. She’ll know what to do, yeah?”

To the right of the couch, Luther stands to attention with their Father, who is far more interested in making more notes than he is assessing Diego’s current wellbeing. Diego, in his barely conscious state, cannot give him facts or figures, but Luther is well-trained in reeling off all of the details Reginald requires for his records; intrigued by the science far more than he is the repercussions. Diego will likely survive, he simply surmises, and thankfully his fussing had not affected the outcome of the evening’s mission. It had happened right as he took out the last of their enemies at close range. Diego sliding his dagger between the man’s ribs just as he’d lurched to jab a needle into Diego’s neck. There remains a dried pinprick of blood just below his earlobe.

“Some sort of hallucinogenic serum, I don’t doubt,” Pogo announces as he appears with Grace and Allison in tow, fingers steepled and brow furrowed, “From what young Miss Allison has been able to explain, I imagine it’s not life-threatening, but rather intended to incapacitate. To give the injector, if you will, an advantage. We could run tests, in order for me to concoct the correct antidote, but I rather feel that would take as much time as letting the effects wear off naturally. Instead, my advice would be to have Grace step in at this point— what will see Master Diego right is plenty of rest, and monitored fluids.”

“All of the children, Number Two included, ought to be back in their bedrooms, I think you’ll find,” Reginald all but grunts as he stalks off towards his office, “Grace, you may keep watch over Two if Pogo has deemed it absolutely necessary.” 

Grace flashes Reginald one of her most placating, but least genuine, smiles and turns to her wards with something far more sincere, once he’s safely out of earshot, “Oh children, what an evening you’ve all had. I’m so proud of each of you. Father’s right, you ought to be getting to your rooms, but there are some post-mission snacks out on the kitchen counter, and you each have fresh school work packets in your cubbies. I’ll see you all before lights out.” 

As they file past her obediently, Grace offers each of the children a gentle squeeze to the shoulder and returns the hug that Klaus reaches out for, dabbing at tear-stained cheeks with her sleeve.

“Look after him, Mom,” He whispers, voice raw from crying, and Grace nods with great gravitas, not taking his concern lightly. Klaus is the most sensitive of her children, and whilst Reginald isn’t above beating it out of him, it’s something Grace admires.

“Of course, darling. Once Diego’s back to himself, you can visit, okay? But for now run along, I think you’ll enjoy the art history assignment.”

Diego stirs, just slightly, as Grace eases onto the couch beside him and lifts his head into her lap. Though his eyes still search for something in the empty air around her, they stall on her for just a beat longer than they had with Ben. He almost sees her, she’s sure. 

“Hello Diego dear,” She whispers, attempting to recapture the split-second of focus. Her soft hand curls against his cheek and her thumb glides her against his jaw. Each time Diego's gaze drags back to meet hers, Grace makes quiet shushing sounds as though she’s trying to coax a feral kitten out from a corner. He’s certainly trembling like one. “It’s just Mom here now, you’re home and safe with your Mom. Try to breathe more slowly now. Deep breaths, out through your nose. My sweet, clever boy.”

Sure, Klaus might be Grace’s most sensitive child, a sponge for any intense emotion, but Diego is the Mama’s boy of the Academy. He’d imprinted on Grace like a lost little duckling the very first time she’d served him his breakfast oatmeal. As far as he was concerned, she’d yet to let him down since that morning. Even a full decade later. 

Now, he babbles back to her with only a vague hint of coherence, struggling again as he tips precariously between the reality of being back with her and the induced paranoia, “M-mom, am-am I h-h-home? What…what…?”

“You certainly are, son. Home with Mom, just like I said. But this stress just won’t do. Remember, I’ve got you. Try to calm down for me.”

“I-I was…I’d-I’d ju-just g-go-got one of th-them b-but then, one of-of the o-others s-sn-snuck up. M-mom, there wa-was a-a-a n-needle I th-think?”

“Oh sweetie, I’m sure you did such a good job. Everyone’s back at the Academy now and your Father seems satisfied enough. I think you’ve earned a rest. Try not to dwell too much about the mission, there’s really no need.”

————————————————

Manoeuvring a drugged Diego from the parlour to his upstairs bedroom is no easy feat, but Grace has hidden strengths and programming that doesn’t allow her to abort tasks until they’re satisfactorily complete. Diego may be taller, broader and unsteady on his feet, but she knots his clammy hand with her’s and manages to chivvy him along. One slow foot in front of the other, with plenty of pauses for him to find his centre of gravity— or simply lean against the nearest wall and pant. It’s a journey that takes triple the time it usually would, but Grace has nothing but patience. 

“Almost there,” She sing-songs as they ascend the final few stairs, breezy as though they were simply strolling home from the park (the one she’d yet to actually see). “You’re doing so well. And look, here’s Ben! Ben my darling, could you possibly do me a favour? Would you be able to grab me a mug of warm milk and some of the cookies I’ve baked for you and follow us to Diego’s room? Take some for yourself, of course— make sure Luther hasn’t helped himself to an unfair share!”

Diego is at least cognisant enough to grumble quietly at the suggestion that Luther would, and Ben and Grace share a fond grin before he hurries off back the way they’d come, kitchen-bound.

————————————————

Once they reach Diego’s bedroom, Grace fetches an extra soft pair of pyjamas from his chest of drawers and doesn’t second-guess helping him rid himself of his uniform in order to change into them. Though she realises as she does so, that his shorts and boxer briefs are damp with pee. A sad sound gets caught in the back of her throat at that, sympathy for her poor boy who’d been forced into a state of such compromised control. Her careful Diego, who colour codes his socks and keeps an itinerary tacked up beside his mirror. She knows that she can’t leave him unwashed, his skin will chafe, but she also doesn’t want to embarrass him by pointing it out in so many words. Really, she does all of the laundry, so nobody beyond her need know it ever happened. Grace has so many of her children’s secrets carefully filed away and password protected, what’s one more? It was just an accident, after all. 

“Maybe a little wipe down, darling?” She suggests tentatively, “Just you wait here, and I’ll come back with a cloth.”

She cleans him all over, swipes at the sweat he’s slick with, as well as the urine on his inner thighs, and hopes he doesn’t twig, even as she hands the cloth to him and tells him to give his private parts a going over, too. He’s too dazed still to hide himself, and so Grace knows that he isn’t yet recovered. He’s half in his room, half somewhere she can’t reach. 

“I wouldn’t want to risk you passing out in the shower at the moment, darling, but isn’t it nice to feel a little fresher after so much exertion? Pyjamas now, yes? Leg in darling, that’s it, good boy.”

Tucked into the fleece lining of his pyjamas, Diego at least looks more comfortable than he’d seemed since he’d been bundled in through the main door. It tugs a smile from him. Small and shy and just for Grace. He really is cotton candy sweet, if he allows you to be privy to the parts of him he’s learned to armour up with a surly outer-shell. Grace feels as though even she’s seeing less of them as he ages. It’s hard. Is it like this for all Moms? She sometimes wonders, silently and only ever to herself. Is any of her job usual? Surely most children don’t return from their days at school with dangerous serums coursing through their veins?

“There you are,” Grace says, light with relief, and Diego almost falls into her with his sudden need for a motherly hug. She squeezes him back as tightly as she can, “There’s my boy. I see him. You’re coming ‘round, just as Pogo assured us you would.”

“He-here M-Mama,” Diego agrees, and Grace can’t stop herself from kissing his nose just to see it scrunch up boyishly. Maybe she’s biased, but he is terribly cute. She could bake him into one of her pies. 

A startled Ben is pounced on for a hug too, when he arrives, one that almost sends the cookies and milk flying. Luckily, Grace’s mechanically quick reflexes kick in with just milliseconds to spare. She deposits them on the desk and Ben lets himself be pulled in tight to Diego’s solid chest, relishing in the affection they’ve been too teenage-awkward to share in a while. Diego swallows hard and stammers into his brother’s hair— 

“Th-thanks, B-ben. It’s all-all f-fuzzy bu-but I kn-know y-you s-s-stayed with m-me.”

Diego can’t quite stabilise his memories into anything solid and recognisable, but there are flashes of Ben’s hands around his own, of Klaus’ little sobs creeping in at the edges, among shadowy spectres and echoes of unintelligible shouting. They’re still around too, the spectres and the blaring, disembodied voices. They’re trying to lure him back, but their pull on him is weakening as more time passes. Ben is substantial, Grace is substantial, Diego is getting there. His pyjamas are soft against his skin and he feels a bit better if he concentrates on that. 

“Always, ‘Go,” Ben assures him, tipping their foreheads together before he steps back, “Get yourself better, yeah, and I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll see you later, Mom— and I know, I know, I need to get my math finished before I crack open that new novel!” 

Grace laughs delightedly, one arm raised to wave Ben off, the other slipped across Diego’s shoulders to keep him from swaying on the spot. Diego lets her presence cloak him, slowing his heartbeat down to what it ought to be. 

“Now son, how about this snack? I don’t think you’ve ever lasted so long after a mission, you usually race Luther to the kitchen!”

————————————————

Exasperatingly, Diego can’t seem to keep his hand steady and the milk sloshes down over his wrist and soaks his sleeve before he even gets the mug to his lips. His goddamn dominant hand, that not three hours ago had been an infallible tool: able to aim a knife with perfect precision and send it coursing through the air at breakneck speed. Now, it can’t keep a proper hold on a cup.

“Oh son,” Grace clucks sympathetically.

A Diego with all of his faculties firmly in place would perhaps bristle at her tone, not out of a lack of appreciation for her concern, but more so because he thinks he ought to be the more of a man now. That he should be taking care of her, rather than vice versa. But the cuff of the clean pyjamas she’d buttoned him into is now sopping wet and he’s tired, too. All of his energy taken up with fighting off the poison. He doesn’t quite feel like that Diego now. He can’t muster anything close to stoic. 

Diego doesn’t cry, especially not over spilt milk. But he does sniffle back a sob and let Grace usher him down to sit on his bed. His resolve melting into the comforter beneath him. 

“You’re not yourself right now, are you son? But that’s quite alright. Gosh, who would be?”

She gathers him up then, as though it’s no bother at all. As though he’s no older than six and soft again. He’s had a growth spurt recently and is certainly filling out the Academy uniform far more than he had even a few months ago— him and Luther both— but Grace’s hugs have yet to change. Diego can only hope that they never will. She takes the mug from him and he takes his opportunity to fist his shaky hand in her blouse, his breath hitching-

“K-kept hearing p-people c-coming a-at me M-mom, but-but I don’t th-think they were r-really there.”

At this, Grace holds him a touch more tightly; smooths her free between his taught shoulder blades and begins to rock with him, “Hallucinations, darling. Something nasty got into your system but Pogo assures me it will fade.”

“A b-b-bad tri-trip,” Diego whispers. He knows the right phrasing; he’s helped Klaus through a couple of those already. 

“It would seem so, darling— but I’m here, and you do seem much more lucid to me, now.”

Diego trusts her to be telling the truth. Everything after the needle had pierced him was something of a blur, after all. But as seemingly better as he is, there are still shadows slinking into the corners of his vision and a whole hive of bees buzzing in his skull. 

He’s been drunk precisely once. All of the kids (bar Luther, of course) had gotten a hold of a bottle of Reggie’s single malt and congregated up in the attic, sat themselves in a circle of shallow swigs and spluttering coughs. Diego had been fine one minute, and then he’d turned too fast, to listen to something Allison was slurring at him, and the world had promptly spun out. The memory becomes miserable then. He’d had to claw at his throat until he’d sicked up the whiskey. The aftershock from the serum isn’t a million miles from that. His throat burns less, but otherwise. 

Since they’re already snuggled together, he decides to hide away in Grace’s neck, and if she feels his eyelashes getting damp, she wisely doesn’t comment. Instead, she gives him whatever time he needs; is ready to greet him with a kind smile when he eventually peeks back up at her with red-rimmed doe eyes. 

“Ma-mama, c-could you-you re-read t-to me?”

————————————————

Shoved under Diego’s pillow is an ancient Batman comic. One he’d received in a stack of fan mail a long time ago. It’s now crumpled and dog-eared, but Diego prefers to think of it being much loved. He tends to turn to the familiarity of its well-thumbed pages on difficult days. There are plenty of those within the walls of the Academy.

Most of them aren’t injection induced, but dear old Reggie has a plethora of his own methods.

“Batman: Shadow of the Bat,” Grace announces, in the same tone of voice she’d used when they were young enough for bedtime stories and had sat cross-legged around her armchair to hear another chapter of _Charlotte’s Web_. Now Diego cuddles into the crook of her arm, with his mug of milk clutched securely in both hands so that he can finally sip from it. It’s cooled, but it’s still good. The spectres and their wailing fade out as Grace reads to him, tracing her manicured nail under the words and pointing out the pictures. With its rise and fall, her voice lulls him somewhere closer to sleep than panic. He has to keep a hold on the cup even once it’s empty, tempering the urge to suck a thumb in response to it. 

By the time Batman has bested his own bad guy, Diego has grown heavy where he’s flush against his Mom. 

“Teeth and then bed?” Grace suggests and Diego agrees with a bleary nod—

“T-teeth and-and b-bed, Mama.”

Unable to shake the swell of overprotective energy that had come over when she’d first come face-to-face with Diego fitting on the couch, Grace accompanies her son to the bathroom. She even squirts out a pearl of toothpaste for him and waits while he brushes and swills. He’s a good boy, she’s proud. Tomorrow, he’ll have recovered, and honestly, she’ll miss getting to spend time with him at his most tender. No doubt some other crisis will arise and he’ll be back out into the fray, _her_ boy hidden beneath his domino mask, straps and buckles and knives. But then she’ll be proud of how strong he has learned to be, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm currently planning a fourth & final part to this series, which will bop back to the original timeline. I have an outline in mind, but if anyone has any ideas or requests or ideas I'm open to them. Thanks for your lovely responses. After such a huge break from writing, it's been really encouraging.


End file.
